I-35/NE 23rd St., Oklahoma City--originally an AASHO rotary

[J N Winkler]

Recently I came across some information which suggests that, when it was originally built, the I-35/NE 23rd Street interchange in Oklahoma City consisted of a rotary straddling the Interstate.  The current configuration is essentially a diamond interchange with crossovers on either side, possibly reusing the original bridges or bridge supports for the rotary in combination with a new bridge to carry NE 23rd over the Interstate:

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=NE+23rd+St,+Oklahoma+City,+OK&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=NE+23rd+St,+Oklahoma+City,+Oklahoma&ll=35.493052,-97.464952&spn=0.001594,0.002411&t=h&z=19&vpsrc=6

Does anyone know when this configuration was put in place?

[Rick1962]

You are correct, the I-35/NE 23 interchange was originally a rotary. The conventional overpass was built sometime in the 1990's IIRC.

Points of interest: The original US 66/Grand Blvd. (current I-44/Hefner Pkwy) interchange was a similar rotary configuration, and the original I-35/US66 (current I-35/SH66) interchange in Edmond was a modified version of same.

And one more: The area in OKC known as Classen Circle was, indeed, once a traffic circle, which was removed in the early 1980's.

[InterstateNG]

I checked Google Earth's historical imagery for the area, and it was a rotary until at least 1995.  There's a gap between 95 and 02.

[rte66man]

The I35/NE23rd interchange was converted about 8-9 years ago.  I will have to look at some old maps to get an exact date.  I don't recall the Grand/US66 being a rotary.  Will ahve to check on that as well.  WOuld have been built in the 50's??

rte66man

[Rick1962]

Yes, the US 66/Grand rotary would have been built in the mid-1950s, when the first sections of NW Expwy., NE Expwy. and West Expwy. (now NW 39 Expwy.) were built.

https://okhistory.cuadra.com/cgi-bin/starfetch.exe?!28repos=SKCA&starhost=star-asp.cuadra.com&file=SKCA/000hm3.jpg&expire=1318258561&ip=&starid=skcacatremote!29/000hm3.jpg

[rte66man]

The link didn't work for me.

rte66man

[Alps]

Exp date passed - looks like a jpg? Maybe we can rehost

[NE2]

Or just mess around with the URL

https://okhistory.cuadra.com/cgi-bin/starfetch.exe?!28repos=SKCA&starhost=star-asp.cuadra.com&file=SKCA/000hm3.jpg&expire=999999999999999999999999999999&ip=&starid=skcacatremote!29/000hm3.jpg

[Rick1962]

Very sly! Learn something every day!

[agentsteel53]

Or just mess around with the URL

https://okhistory.cuadra.com/cgi-bin/starfetch.exe?!28repos=SKCA&starhost=star-asp.cuadra.com&file=SKCA/000hm3.jpg&expire=999999999999999999999999999999&ip=&starid=skcacatremote!29/000hm3.jpg

I wouldn't be surprised if a long string of 9s like that had a 50/50 probability of wrapping around to be a negative number.

[route56]

Or, you could just get rid of the &exp and &ip fields...

[Alps]

Or just mess around with the URL

https://okhistory.cuadra.com/cgi-bin/starfetch.exe?!28repos=SKCA&starhost=star-asp.cuadra.com&file=SKCA/000hm3.jpg&expire=999999999999999999999999999999&ip=&starid=skcacatremote!29/000hm3.jpg

Asshole, you broke Java!

[rte66man]

Thanks for "fixing" the link so I could see it. Would guess the photo to date appx 1953 based on the housing around it.

rte66man